Marc's Public Blog

Snow coverage was excellent for that time of the year, although the snow was obviously variable and you had to follow the sun or the snow was icy or too wet. Still, for that time of the year, it was better than average for sure.

great to meet ovidiu, it had been a while

and then there is this troublemaker

chamoix was still in very good shape, snow all the way down

palisades was still in great shape

People also had nice costumes:

Group pictures:

some music before the drive home :)

Dezza opened the night:

After a while, we had power outages due to a utility pole having short circuits (some saw blue lightening). Thankfully PG&E fixed it pretty quickly considering:

Thankfully things were fixed in time by 23:00 for Steve to start his set:

found another Tshirt copycat :)

Dave Dresden and his partner came to join us for the epic night

Steve brough his own turntable needles for perfect rendition

It was a great night, super happy we got to go. Video summary:

Despite leaving at 13:00, the drive got delayed by 30mn due to traffic (damn, things clog up early now). That caused my tesla to save battery use (slower speed) and I had an estimate of 21% left of arrival before the last climb. This got down to 9% when I arrived, as my drive up took more than planned, as usual (despite virtually no snow on the road). Snow line was a bit over 6000ft, carson spur was not too covered anymore, so no worries about it closing:

coverage left was decent

The snow was a bit wet (high snoe line) and didn't stay much on the road/base, but the next morning, we had some. Unfortunately lifts opened 1h late due to lack of staff to do snow safety. Once opened, the snow was pretty good:

unfortunately lifts opened 1h late, lik

finally got to go up

Chamoix was in really good shape

The wall still had a good amount of snow left

Even Palisades was still open

Day #2 had more snow, although it came late a night and continued throughout the day, it was pretty wet. Good amounts of snow, but the conditions were tough and most people got pretty wet. Snow was pretty wet and heavy and took a lot of effort to ride. Still, not complaining, it was fun :)

as a result, few people running the lifts, even on a sunday.

The really cool part of that museum is of course the space shuttle that was moved there:

including a booster

After flying the space shuttle to LAX (through a nice flight across the california coast, I remember seeing it when it flew by the bay area), they show the challenging trip to the science center:

The rest of the museum was still fun to see, including a next expo on Ankor:

And nice gardens on the way out:

welcome to LA

Finally got in, but looked like a naked peasant thanks go Banc of CA policies:

Got in in time to see Mr Brooks:

Good to run into friends again:

Ruben de Ronde was next:

Then Gabriel & Dresden were next:

Marlo came next with a dynamite set:

The awesome part was that TFSF's Triode got to go on stage for some of his tracks. We were so soooo happy for him:

Now was the time for cosmic gate:

And last, but not least, Armin of course. He did an interesting set that mixed a lot of genres, including almost techno and tech trance. Not everyone liked that, but I thought it was interesting and enjoyed it:

While this wasn't the fantastic Asot 1000 it could have been given the poor venue, rules, limited runtime, and so forth, I do have to say that all the artists put out banger sets. I know some didn't like Armin's but let's be serious, he has over 20 years worth of music and there is no way he can play the whole range and make everyone happy. Personally I liked the variety in his set even if I'm a melodic/euphoric trance person at heart.

And after just 6 hours, the show was over. It was a pretty short show due to curfews. A bit underwhelming for an ASOT 1000 show, a pretty terrible venue in my opinion, but it was still a show, better than all the other shows that got cancelled altogether.... But still, bitsweet to have a festival that didn't look like a festival due to the ridiculous rules in that venue.

The exchange party started at 22:00 when Armin was playing until 23:00 on the main show and it took over an hour getting there due to terrible traffic and parking, plus a long line getting in the venue. On the plus side, Exchange was fine letting me in with my LED outfit and fanny pack (thank you), but strangely they do not allow small personal cameras unless they also happen to make phone calls (and yes my handheld cameras are smaller than the average phone). That's such a puzzling and pointless policy, virtually all venues allow small non professional handheld cameras, which is what I have. I got mine in eventually, but it was added delay stress I didn't need.

By the time we arrived, Marlo was already playing, so I got to see part of his set in a super packed room:

By 01:00, Armin took over and went to play until 03:00, although we only started a bit over 01:00 because the room was so jam packed that it was difficult to enjoy the show.

Thanks to Jolie for this picture:

I think I had higher expectations for exchange, but I was literally 11 hours of partying in by the time I arrived, so I was already tired, and once you added the mess that it was to get there, get in, and then how badly packed it was, it just wasn't that much fun anymore, so I left early so that I had a chance to get an uber home that wouldn't cost a fortune (my original plan was to drive but after seeing the mess, I thankfully got a ride there, thanks Jolie).

Here is the video summary, pretty short given how hard it was to be there and film:

I was excited to find out she was playing one day before ASOT 1000 in LA, so I made sure to go and it was a great night, the energy was awesome.
We had two DJs open, Nagi and Mr Frost:

Nice to meet some friends:

Miyuki was nice enough to come early, spend some time with us, and take pictures:

thanks to findtherabbit for running the visuals, great job as always

Then was time for her 3H show:

She even treated us to some flute

Miyuki put on a great show for us, and finished with some high energy dubstep that was a lot of fun:

Thanks to all for the great show, it really was a blast.

The local history part was cool too:

The gems and stones were also wodnderful:

The dinosaurs section was also quite good, but we were running out of time by then:

Nice building and fun to visit:

Spruce Goose, biggest wooden flying boat in the world.

Nice building, glad I got to visit: